Towards a regional innovation system? The role of a regional university

This is a study of development of a network towards an innovation system in the context of a cluster in mature electronics industry, and how the regional university can contribute as a catalyst in this process. Innovation is acknowledged as one of the most important factors on value creation. Promotion of innovation can be seen as the promotion of clustering and networking because innovation is more and more seen as the product of the co-ordinated efforts of many people distributed in different organisations, private as well as public. Hence a lot of effort and resources have been made to try to create and govern network and innovation systems, but they rarely succeed. A regional university may contribute in developing a network towards an innovation system by organizing tailored interorganizational courses, on the condition of a pedagogy based on network reflections. In this study of the long run effects of such a course I find a significant increased networking, some innovations and the further development of an innovation system. Network Reflections may thus be a concept by which universities can contribute as catalysts to institute forms of collaboration that energize networking, innovation, and the development towards innovation systems. Key-words Regional innovation systems; network; innovation; connectedness; ties; experienced reflections; network reflections Introduction The introduction of the notion ‘regional innovation systems’ (Lundvall, 1992; Cooke, 1998) in the early 1990s was a response to the challenges facing economic growth in Europe, because of globalization and the decreased importance of the national state. The concept combines the acknowledgement of local embedded knowledge as a vital source of innovative activity, and the idea that innovation is firmly linked to networks. Rather than taking place in a single spot, where a few bright actors are able to break out of the mainstream of thoughts and actions, innovation is more and more seen as the product of co-ordinated efforts of many people distributed in different organisations, private as well as public. From this perspective, the promotion of innovation can be seen as the promotion of networking and regional innovation systems. There is a substantial and rapidly growing literature about how innovative networks and regional innovation systems work (for an overview, see Hoang & Antoncic, 2003; Doloreux & Parto, in press; Cooke, in press). One should expect this literature to encompass broad discussion on how to create appropriate forms of co-operation, but such discussions are, however, relatively rare. The purpose of this paper is to raise and discuss this issue, how to create innovative regional networks.